I am a CPA in Texas with an MBA from the University of Chicago. I have seen a lot and made many mistakes. Hopefully by now I will have learned something from them. Just as importantly, you may learn something from my mistakes. You can e-mail me by clicking on my "View my complete profile".

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Obama in Wonderland

"When I was a little girl, at the height of the Cold War, I used to wish, deeply, and fervently, that nuclear weapons had never been invented. An accompanying fantasy placed me at the center of world events. Just as the two superpowers were preparing to launch a devastating exchange of nuclear weapons, I would step between the two. Seeing an innocent child, the hard-boiled men of the world would soften and reconsider their terrible course. In other words, at the age of seven or eight, I was a liberal. As I grew, I came to understand a) that it was not possible to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle, and b) that the way to safety lay not in arms control but in strength prudently pursued. Liberal approaches to foreign policy continue to rely more on wishful thinking than on realism or maturity. But even in the context of liberalism, President Obama's recent policy declarations on the matter of nuclear weapons are juvenile and disturbing. ... Here's a thought experiment: Imagine that all of the existing nuclear powers agreed that their weapons were more of a threat to 'peace and security' than they were worth, and voluntarily destroyed them all. Would the world immediately become a safer place? No. It would become far more dangerous. ... So, one outcome might be that North Korea would instantly become a superpower. ... We have to insist, 'Yes, we can.' That's security policy by bumper sticker. ... So as Iran closes in on a nuclear weapon--a result the adminstration has repeqatedly declared to be 'unacceptable'--the administration is getting really serious by ... setting a good example. ... Underlying all of these naive gestures is the belief that it is the weapons that threaten the peace, not their owners. ... This is a fatuous distraction from the main issue--Iran. It is also a transparent attempt to gang up on Israel. ... But above all, it ignores the glaring fact that the treaty has been a total failure", Mona Charen (MC) at National Review, 11 May 2010, link:

"Now boys and girls, remember, in case of nuclear attack do not face the windows. You don't want to have your faces hit with flying glass. Duck and cover!". I remember. I never shared MC's fantasy. Arms control? Anyone remember 1922's Washington naval conference? Boy, I must have been a skeptical kid. I made MC's "thought experiment" in 1958! Really!!!!! Concluding the experiment would fail. Now Obama aren't "arms for hugging"?